Dark days lead to even darker nights and every time I try to sleep, something in my room awakens and begins a reign of terror against me. And I cannot fend it off much longer. It is getting bolder as time goes on and soon, very soon, I will have to fight it off or succomb to it's evil will.

I pull the covers up to my chin and begin the familiar vigil, hoping the bodiless appendages will not appear. But just as I begin to doze, my nightly companions visit once again.


The hands come floating toward me. I can see them in the dark corner of my room, a pale movement, reaching, undulating like belly dancers in the night.

They retreat then, to fade back ... back into the shadows. My eyes go dry I stare so intently at the corner. And I think I hear a thump beneath my bed. It can't be. I'm all grown up now. The things that go bump in the night cannot get me anymore.

But I still stare, not believing, yet frozen in fear at what I know I saw.

There they are again. The hands, doing a dance in the dark, getting closer this time and a hard thump accompanies each move they make, like a primal drumbeat urging them on.

Now my heart is pounding and I try to swallow, but the hands are too tight around my throat.